


Atonement

by authorette



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 03:12:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1672574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authorette/pseuds/authorette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set straight after the end of season 3. Emma, worried that she's doomed Regina to being on her own forever, enlists Tinkerbell's help to find Regina another True Love. Unfortunately, things don't work out quite the way Emma envisaged them to...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set after the events of the season 3 finale and therefore contains spoilers if you haven't seen it. Please note that I have chosen to ignore Elsa - this one-shot already turned somewhat mammoth without including her in the plot as well. 
> 
> A word of warning: there is some het sex between Hook and Emma but it's short and definitely not the main focus of the story. 
> 
> This is the first fic I've completed in 5 years so I'm a little nervous - any feedback is greatly appreciated! And please do point out any errors - I'm especially bad for including British-isms when writing for US shows.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!  
> Authorette

After Regina turned and left, the soft, warm light of the diner immediately seemed harsher and colder. Since she’d been thrown back out of the portal, Emma had felt so full of love and affection and peace that it seemed like she was overflowing, but the look on Regina’s face as she realised what Emma had done had pulled the plug on those emotions, draining the happiness within her and leaving her feeling cold and empty.

“Emma?”

Mary-Margaret touched her arm with the hand that was not holding baby Neal close to her chest.

Emma turned around to face her mother and saw mirrored within her eyes the same despair that Emma felt. Without meaning to, she had managed to destroy Regina’s happy ending all over again.

She thought of going after Regina, but she had no idea what to say. _Sorry I stopped you from murdering Marian?_ That wouldn’t be true and Regina would know it.

Henry emerged from the bathroom and looked around, confused. “Where’s Mom?”

Emma opened her mouth but when Henry spotted Robin and his newly reunited family, she couldn’t bear to have to put it into words. _I ruined your Mom’s life. Again._

“I need some air,” she muttered instead and turned on her heels to escape the diner, where the walls suddenly felt like they were closing in on her.

She paused outside after the door smacked shut behind her. She sank heavily onto the chair at the small table where she had kissed Hook not an hour ago. The happy buzz that kissing him had left within her was all gone now; Regina’s face had been like a bucket of ice water dumped over her head.

Only Regina could make her feel like shit about saving someone’s life. She had been right! It wasn’t Emma’s fault that Regina had been a murderous psychopath in her past life!

Except Emma’s chest hadn’t gotten that memo, because it still hurt like a bitch to think about the devastation on Regina’s face when she realised what Emma had done. Emma sat with her head buried in her hands until she realised that her face was wet with tears.

Without even really thinking about it, she got up and turned her feet right towards Mifflin Street.

***

“What are _you_ doing here?” Tinkerbell asked with so much venom that Emma took a step back.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Emma bitched back. She had never liked Tinkerbell and her superior, woe-is-me whinging about her lost wings. What had she expected, messing with Regina?

Tinkerbell stepped outside the manor and closed the door behind her. “Haven’t you done enough damage for one night?”

That was it. Emma wasn’t going to feel guilty for _saving a girl’s life_ , goddammit!

“Hey look here, fairy! I don’t know what she told you but Regina was going to murder an innocent woman for helping my mother. I’m really sorry about her boyfriend and I’m here to apologise, but I’m not going to let you make me feel guilty about saving someone’s life.”

Tinkerbell did not look impressed. “You didn’t save her life, you essentially brought her back from the dead! Why were you meddling with the past? Do you have any idea what kind of damage you could have done?”

After the day Emma had had, and considering that she now had more first-hand experience with time travel than anyone, the lecture rubbed her up the wrong way.

“I just spent days trying to fix changes in the past, so I think I have a much better idea about time travel than you do! She didn’t directly affect the timeline, so how was I supposed to know that she was Regina’s boyfriend’s dead wife? And by the way, we were _preserving_ the timeline by bringing her back with us!”

Obviously realising that her superior attitude was not helping matters, Tinkerbell took two steps and moved down so that she was standing on level ground with Emma, leaving her slightly below Emma’s eyelevel.

“Look, Emma, I know it feels like you did the right thing, but that woman was dead. You say saving her didn’t affect the timeline but what you mean is that she didn’t affect _your_ timeline. Would you have saved her if doing so would have stopped your parents getting together? What about if you had landed at a different point in time? Would you have stopped Regina from killing your grandfather? Of course not, because that would have stopped your parents from meeting! All this self-righteous nonsense about saving the innocent, but in truth you only did it to make yourself feel better. That woman’s family had years to move on and rebuild their lives, and you made a choice to mess with things that you had no right to meddle with!”

“So you’re saying I should have let her die?” Emma said, furious.

“She was _already dead!_ Do you have any idea how many thousands died so that you could be born? How many were killed by your mother and your father and all the dwarves, and the wolf and all those that fight for them? What makes Marian’s life worth more than those?”

“Marian was innocent!” Emma exclaimed but even as she said it, the words felt hollow. After everything she had seen in Storybrooke, in the Enchanted Forest and in Neverland, that word had lost all meaning.

Tinkerbell rolled her eyes and turned back towards the house.

“Wait, can I see her? I need to talk to her.”

Tinkerbell shook her head without turning around. “She’s sleeping. Come back tomorrow, although I suspect you’ll be the last person she wants to see.”

And before Emma could say another word the door to 108 had slammed in her face.

***

Emma was back on Mifflin Street at ten the next morning. Regina had always been an early riser and she hoped that by catching her before she had all day to work herself into a rage she might gain some tiny, much-needed advantage.

She rounded the corner to Regina’s driveway only to smack into Tinkerbell.

“You again!”

“Well you did tell me to come back today!”

Tinkerbell grabbed her elbow and pulled her back out of Regina’s garden. “So I did. But Robin is in there at the moment and I don’t think you’ll want to interrupt that.”

“Shit.” Emma peered over the hedge towards Regina’s house but of course she couldn’t see anything.

She hoped it wasn’t too awful. Robin was a good man. She hadn’t spoken to him much, but he’d been making Regina so happy.

“Maybe leave it for a bit.” Tinkerbell strode down the road to where her bike was chained to a lamppost. Since returning from Neverland, she had gotten involved in environmental work and taken to trying to promote a ‘greener Storybrooke’, like they didn’t all have bigger problems than a hole in the ozone layer.

Emma stood aimlessly for a moment, watching Tinkerbell unchain her precious bicycle, and then suddenly, just as the small green bike started to wobble down the road, Emma raced to catch up with her, a thought nagging in her head.

“Tinkerbell! Wait!”

“Sweet mother of the Reul Ghorm!” Tinkerbell swore as she swerved and braked sharply. “Can you maybe, I don’t know, _not_ scare me to death next time?”

“Sorry,” Emma lied, “I just have to ask you something. Now that Robin and Regina aren’t together anymore, das that mean she’ll never be able to love again?”

This was something that had been gnawing at her ever since she had realised what she had done. What if this was Regina’s only shot? What if she was alone forever?

Tinkerbell sighed. “No, of course not. There’s a difference between True Love and falling in love. It’s just that it’s a lot harder to settle for something less than True Love when you’ve had it. I think that’s why Regina never really let someone in again after Daniel.”

Emma nodded, chewing her lip. An idea formed in her head. “You found Robin for Regina with pixie dust, right?”

Tinkerbell rolled her eyes so hard Emma was surprised it didn’t hurt. “I didn’t _find_ Robin for Regina; the pixie dust led us to him.”

“But before that, she’d already had a True Love?”

Tinkerbell nodded, eyebrows raised.

“So you can have more than one True Love?”

“For someone who has so much of it, you understanding of magic is really basic, isn’t it?”

Emma sighed. Despite their differences, this fairy had an awful lot in common with Regina, and lecturing her about her lack of understanding of things was clearly a shared interest.

“When we say that someone has found their True Love, what we mean is that they are intrinsically romantically compatible with another person and that they have the capacity for the most pure and deep love for one another. In our land that is a rare thing because almost everyone marries out of necessity, or through an arranged match. We fairies are tasked with finding matches which can result in true love, meaning that they can spend their lives together and live happily ever after. There isn’t just one True Love per person; everyone has a handful of people who they would be compatible with.”

“But if fairies help bring people together, why doesn’t everyone find their True Love?”

Tinkerbell sneered and Emma was reminded of the look Mary-Margaret had given her in the Enchanted Forest when she’d tried to defeat an ogre with her gun.

“Match-making isn’t exactly our only job, Saviour. We focus our attention on the royalty and the nobles, and in return they let us mine the fairy dust in their lands. Happy royals equals happy fairies.”

Emma raised her eyebrows. So much for magnanimous fairy godmothers. “So you said everyone has more than one True Love, right? Can you help me find another one of Regina’s? Maybe if I showed her that this isn’t the end of her happiness-“

“You think that presenting Regina, the woman who took over thirty years to approach her last match, with another potential soul mate, will make her forget that you just ruined her relationship?”

Emma sighed in frustration. “Look, I’m not saying it’s perfect or that she should just get over what’s happened or whatever, I just want her to know that this doesn’t mean she can never be happy, you know?”

Tinkerbell shook her head. “It can’t be done. Firstly, I have no more pixie dust. Secondly, when I meant everyone only has a handful of matches, I meant that across their lifetimes! For all we know, Regina’s True Love hasn’t even been born yet, or lives in a far-off land, or the timing just isn’t right. And that’s if there’s even one in this realm!” She rubbed the bridge of her nose, clearly frustrated by Emma’s naivety. “Look, when I showed Robin to Regina the first time, he hadn’t met Marian yet. Then, because she decided not to approach him, he met another match, and during that time, even though he and Regina were compatible, nothing could have happened, because he was with his True Love. Now, when Regina then met him again, Marian was out of the picture. But that’s pure coincidence! Say we find Regina’s True Love, third edition, but they’re happily married with 10 children? What then?”

This was a lot more complicated than Emma had originally thought, but she wasn’t going to give up that easily. “Look, I see what you’re saying, there’s a lot of factors and maybe it won’t work. But what if it does? I owe it to her to try and fix this, Tinkerbell. Please!”

Despite her stern look, Emma could tell that Tinkerbell was softening. It seemed a True Love quest was hard for a fairy to avoid. “Ok, if we do this, and I mean, if, then you are responsible for getting the pixie dust from the convent. Blue has it locked up in her room, so you’ll have to break in. She’d never give it to you if she knew what you were going to meddle with True Love.”

This whole ‘fairies deciding who got their True Love’ thing was really rubbing Emma up the wrong way, but she nodded anyway. “And if I get it, you’ll help me?”

Tinkerbell let out a long-suffering sigh and nodded.

***

Emma shut the door to the loft softly and gave Mary-Margaret a thumbs up behind the back of Blue, who was sipping her tea delicately. “Afternoon all,” she then exclaimed, deliberately cheery.

“Good afternoon Emma,” Blue smiled up at her.

“I asked Blue to come over so she could maybe see if Neal has some of that magic that you have as well,” Mary-Margaret beamed up at her. “I thought it would be good to have a little warning in case he starts creating havoc.”

“I’m afraid it’s still too early to tell. Unless he starts tapping into it on his own, which is very rare with an infant, we’ll have to wait until he’s older to test it.”

Emma smiled at Neal and took him out of her mother’s arms. “What do you say, kid? Are you a little sorcerer?”

“I’d better get going,” Blue smiled at them both. “I have to supervise dinner at the convent.”

Emma smiled stiffly as Mary-Margaret walked her out. As soon as the door was shut, her mother’s dark eyes fixed on her expectantly. “You got it?”

“I did. I already called Tinkerbell, we’re going to the clock tower tonight; that way we’ll be able to see the whole town and it’ll be easier for us to follow the dust.”

The decision to involve Mary-Margaret in her plan had been easier than it would have been the day before. Emma felt so much closer to her and the fact that her trust had been rewarded and that her mother had distracted Blue while she had crept around on her hands and knees in the convent really meant something to her.

“Thank you…mom.” The word still tasted strange in her mouth, but when she saw Mary-Margaret’s watery smile she figured it was only a matter of time before she was used to it.

***

“Look, are you absolutely sure you want to do this? This could have consequences which you might regret. What if Regina’s True Love is, I don’t know, Hook?”

Emma wrinkled her nose. “Come on, be serious.”

“I am being serious!” Tinkerbell huffed on the stairs behind her. “Emma, I learned this the hard way. Pixie dust isn’t a game. It can see into the depths of a person, right at who they really are, and sometimes finding that out can be really hard to accept.”

Emma ignored her. Ever since they had met on Main Street ten minutes ago, Tinkerbell had been muttering apocalyptic warnings about what they were about to do.

“Look, if you’re so worried about this, why are you helping me?”

Tinkerbell shifted her weight and looked a little sheepish. “I just feel a bit bad. I spent years blaming Regina for what happened to me but it was my fault. I disobeyed the fairy code about True Love and I meddled without instructions from Blue. Regina wasn’t ready and I messed up. Who knows, if I hadn’t tried to force Robin on her maybe she would have met him on her own. I’m just trying to make up for that.”

Emma was struck by the thought that Regina really was an easy target for blaming one’s mistakes on. Emma hadn’t even batted an eyelash on Neverland when Regina told her that Tinkerbell wasn’t happy with her, hadn’t even considered that it might not be all Regina’s fault. She quickly changed the subject.

“Have you got what you need?”

Tinkerbell nodded and pulled out two test tubes, each containing a hair. “One of Regina’s to focus the spell, and one of Robin’s to make sure he’s excluded. The dust will lead us to the closest True Love match for Regina, if one exists in this realm.”

“Then let’s do this.” Emma’s tone left no room for further debate.

Tinkerbell, clearly sensing that Emma was dead serious about this and not in the mood for further lectures and warnings, began unpacking various supplies from her bag.

“Now because Regina’s isn’t here this is going to be a little bit more complicated. Just stand there, and don’t touch anything.”

“Bossy,” Emma muttered but she crossed her arms and leant on the far wall, observing as Tinkerbell muttered and waved her hands and sprinkled the dust.

Finally, she stood back and announced “We’re ready.”

Emma took as step forward, nervous energy suddenly welling up inside her. It was so strange to think that in a few moments, she was going to see Regina’s soul mate. She met Tinkerbell’s eyes and nodded, and with a tip of the wrist, Regina’s hair and the stolen pixie dust intertwined, slowly forming a bright, dazzling ball of light that hung between them.

“What now?” Emma asked.

“Now, we wait for it to find what it’s looking for, and then we follow it,” Tinkerbell said.

Emma turned her attention back to the ball of light, waiting for it to leave the clock tower through the still-broken glass, and watched as it quivered for a moment, then flew towards her and hovered over her head for a brief moment before emptying itself and showering Emma in a thick layer of pixie dust.

***

It was almost midnight when Emma unlocked the door to the loft and tiptoed towards her room.

“So did you find him?”

“Jesus fucking shit!” Emma clutched at her rapidly beating heart and turned to the sofa where a pink nightgown clad Mary-Margaret was waiting up with a copy of _Little Women_ open on her lap. “Way to give me a heart attack!”

“Sorry!” The eagerness in her face made Emma wince. “So tell me! Was he handsome? Do we know him? It’s not that late so he can’t have been far away!”

“It didn’t work,” Emma lied, her eyes firmly fixed on a spot over her mother’s shoulder. Lying to someone’s face was always easier when you didn’t actually have to look them in the eyes. “I’m tired, I’m going to bed.”

“Wait!” Mary-Margaret stood up. “Aren’t you going to try again? What went wrong?”

Emma sighed softly. “I don’t know, lots of things can impact this, maybe Regina’s True Love hasn’t even been born yet. I think Tinkerbell’s right and this is a bad idea. I can’t just go to Regina and be like ‘sorry I ruined your last relationship, maybe you’ll want to try with this guy instead’!”

Mary-Margaret looked like she wanted to protest, but Emma smiled as sincerely as she could manage and said ‘goodnight’ in a very firm tone, before quickly crossing into her room and shutting the door in relief.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Tinkerbell was calling, for the seventh time since she had fled the clock tower. Emma rolled her eyes. Some fairies really didn’t know how to take a hint. She really didn’t need to hear another lecture about how she had told her so and how pixie dust knew inner truths and revealed things that no one wanted to know and all that crap.

Besides, it was clearly a mistake. The idea that Emma could be Regina’s True Love was laughable, and if it wasn’t for the tightness in her chest she would probably be out there with Mary-Margaret, laughing about the hilarious pixie dust mishap.

It wasn’t that Emma couldn’t see the attraction. Regina was gorgeous, and really smart, and knew how to handle herself in a fight, and a fierce, loving mother, but she was also a little crazy. Seeing her in the Enchanted Forest had pretty much confirmed that. Ok, so she’d had a pretty shitty childhood and things hadn’t gone so well for her first boyfriend, but plotting away in a castle for over a decade and then chasing Snow White through the woods for years was just a little bit of an overreaction.

Plus, Emma was straight. Like, she’d kissed more than a few women, but she had never gone further than that. She liked _Hook_! She had just admitted that to herself, had finally given in after so long, and she really liked him! He had given up his ship to be with her for god’s sake! No one had ever done something that romantic for her.

And why was she even still worrying about this, because clearly it was all a big mistake. She’d probably been standing too close or had attracted the stupid dust with her white magic or something. It meant nothing.

And the fact that she was still awake an hour later was totally due to time travel jet lag.

***

It occurred to Emma after a pretty shitty night’s sleep that the sensible thing to do was to write Regina a letter. She had made it pretty clear at the diner that this was all Emma’s fault and that she hated her and talking hadn’t exactly ever gone well for them in the past, so this was clearly the mature way to approach things.

The letter was pretty short; Emma had never been the writing sonnets and waxing lyrical type. In half a page, she explained that she was sorry that her actions had hurt Regina, that she didn’t regret saving Marian but she did regret that it had caused Regina pain, and that she hoped that Regina could forgive her for that.

Emma ignored the look that Henry gave her when she asked him to deliver it to his mother which basically implied that he thought she was a dirty coward, and decided to try and forget about this whole True Love and pixie dust nonsense. Instead she spent the day helping Mary-Margaret sort through all of the gifts that the town had presented them with at the party, making piles for clothes that he could wear straight away and ones that would have to wait until he’d grown a little.

She heard a gasp as her mother ripped the wrapping paper off one of the largest gifts in the pile and turned around. In the midst of baby blue tissue paper stood a beautifully carved wooden rocking horse, with delicate features and a leather saddle with stirrups and reigns and stunning details painted onto the face and the legs.

“It’s from Regina,” Mary-Margaret whispered. “It’s beautiful!”

Emma didn’t know what to say. Sure, Regina and her mother had been getting along better, especially since they both got their memories back and remembered that they had sort of made up in the Enchanted Forest, but Emma would never have expected her to send something so special.

To cover her surprise, Emma quickly leant over the list that she was creating to help with the thank-you notes and wrote down _Regina – Horse_.

There was a sharp rapping on the door.

“It’s open!” Mary-Margaret called, which set Neal off into a fit of crying and left Emma to welcome a bemused Hook as her mother winced and quickly began cradling her son.

“Hello Swan,” he smirked at her.

“Killian,” she replied with a nod and a small smile. She turned to her mother. “We’re going for a walk, I’ll be back later, ok?”

Mary-Margaret beamed at her and Emma knew that as a sign that she was about to say something mushy which would make Emma deeply uncomfortable, so she quickly grabbed her coat and with a quick wave pushed Hook out of the door.

Their walk ended up being a ten minute stroll which was the length of time it took to get from the loft to Hook’s room at Granny’s. When Hook turned to her after he had shut the door Emma decided that for once, she was going to take the initiative and shoved him up against the door, kissing him hard.

It was nothing like the soft, sweet kisses they had shared the night of Neal’s naming celebration. This was hard and dirty and exactly what Emma needed. She grabbed his collar and pulled him towards the bed, moaning when he moved to hold her hips. She wished he’d hold her tighter; she wasn’t a delicate doll and she kissed more fiercely hoping that he’d get the hint.

They fell onto the bed and she closed her eyes firmly as his mouth moved to her neck. But even as she arched into the tough, her mind began thrusting images at her of Regina’s smooth neck and the way her smooth throat melded into her chin, her head thrown back in a genuine, sparkling laugh.

“Swan?” Hook queried, hovering above her with his eyebrows raised.

“I’m here,” she muttered, pulling his face back down before he could say anything more and sucking on his lower lip. He pushed his hands up her torso and cupped her breast through her t-shirt. She groaned.

Emma could feel him getting hard against her leg and suddenly couldn’t help but wonder hysterically whether Hook had ever used a condom before. Would he even know what to do with it? Emma wondered if Regina had had to explain that to Robin. She imagined Regina talking about sex; it was probably brisk and business-like. _Take this. Put it on like this. Now fuck me._

Then again, from what she’d seen in the Enchanted Forest of Regina’s plunging necklines and leather pants, maybe she had a hidden passionate side. Maybe underneath all that bluster and those stern, professional necklines was a woman who was desperate just to get fu-…

“Hey, Swan!” Hook rolled off her and Emma sat up, shaking her head to try and focus.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I guess I’m not really with it today.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” He gave her a bemused smirk. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“No,” she said too quickly, “no, I’m sorry. Maybe it’s just moving a little fast.”

Hook nodded, neither of them pointing out that it was Emma who had basically attacked him the moment they were alone together.

Emma stood up and straightened her shirt. “I’m going to go, but I’ll-” She broke off, having almost said that she’d call him, but phones and Hook still didn’t gel very well, so instead she said “I’ll see you soon, ok?”

And with a quick peck on the lips, she made her escape.

***

From Granny’s Emma headed straight to Mifflin Street. She decided to walk even though it was a bit chilly because her head felt like it was full of a million different thoughts, and the brisk Maine wind felt like it was clearing them out.

She should have listened to the damn fairy. Now she couldn’t even make out with her hot pirate without fucking Regina popping into her head like a massive cock block.

This needed to end. If she could just clear the air with Regina, she wouldn’t feel guilty anymore and then she would be able to enjoy making out with the guy who would do pretty much anything for her and she would finally be able to have something semi-normal and get to be happy for a change.

Her courage failed her the moment she pushed open Regina’s gate. Visions of fire balls and herself flying through the air came to mind and she backed out again quickly. She couldn’t just march up there and ring the bell, she needed a plan.

One that absolutely did not mention the words ‘pixie dust’.

“If this is how you conduct stakeouts, I’m surprised you ever caught anybody.”

Emma jumped about two feet in the air at the sound of Regina’s voice coming from directly behind her. “Jesus, have you thought about putting a bell around your neck?”

Regina raised her eyebrows at her. “Is there a reason you are back, yet again, staring at my house?”

“I, erm,” Emma said eloquently, stuck on the part where Regina had clearly noticed her previous failed attempts at getting to her front door, “did you get my letter?”

“The one you sent Henry to deliver? Yes.”

Regina moved past her and began up the path. Emma hesitated for a brief moment and then followed her.

“And?”

“And what, Miss Swan?” Regina turned to face her, and Emma felt her chest tighten at how utterly defeated she looked. “You’re sorry but you’re not really sorry. You did the right thing, it was unfortunate that yet again the right thing happened to deprive me of my happiness, and now you want forgiveness. Is that about right?”

“Look, Regina, I really, honestly, did not mean to hurt you. I didn’t do this on purpose, and I’m really sorry that I’ve messed up your life.” Emma looked right at her and doesn’t blink, hoping that somehow Regina would be able to read the sincerity in her face.

Regina shook her head, and smiled sadly. “I know. I know you were only trying to help and I know that I cannot blame you for the things that I have done in the past. If you’re worried that I’m going to exact revenge then you can rest assured that I do not plan to pursue such a course of action.” Her voice was quiet and rough and the way her red rimmed eyes glittered wetly made Emma feel like the world’s biggest asshole.

“Regina…” she began but she had no idea what to say. Clearly _I’m sorry_ for the millionth time wasn’t going to make her feel any better.

“But I’m sure you can understand,” Regina continued as if she hadn’t interrupted, “that even though I recognise this on a rational level, I am deeply angry and hurt and right now I need someone to blame and that someone is you.”

Emma nodded. Her chest felt tight. Regina’s voice was very thin and Emma was worried that she might cry. Emma had never been very good with girls crying.

“So for the time being, I would appreciate it if you just left me alone. No more skulking around my garden, no more notes sent through Henry. Just let me be.”

And then, without even letting Emma agree, she walked up the stairs to the manor and shut the door in Emma’s face.

***

_A gust of wind blew strands of thick, dark hair against Emma’s cheek. Her nose filled with the scent of apples and spring and soft fingers were suddenly touching her face._

_“Emma,” Regina whispered into her ear, the lips so close that she could feel moist air against her lobe. “Emma, please.”_

_Emma’s nipples felt tight as Regina’s mouth began to kiss her neck, so softly and delicately that it felt almost like a feather was being gently trailed along her skin. She could hear moaning, soft and desperate, and realised that it was coming from her. But she couldn’t stop, because suddenly long, slim fingers were running up her torso and gently rubbing at her hard nipples._

Emma woke with a gasp. Her Red Sox t-shirt was stuck to her back, and she realised that her right hand was down her boxers, rubbing her clit. She couldn’t remember ever being this wet from a dream before.

She blamed it on her abortive efforts with Hook the previous day. After all, it had been weeks since she’d gotten laid, and even longer since she’d had sex with someone who hadn’t turned out to be a flying monkey.

Glancing at her alarm clock, she saw that she had time before she had to meet Mary-Margaret at Granny’s and closed her eyes, picturing Killian’s smirk and his mouth pressed hard against hers, and began to rub. It felt great and she was so ready.

But even as she could feel herself getting close, her middle finger rubbing tight, hard circles around her clit, images from her dream kept pushing into her mind. She rolled her head from side to side, trying to banish thoughts of long, soft fingers in favour of Hook’s firm grip.

The orgasm which had been so close slipped further away.

Emma groaned in frustration and rolled onto her stomach, pulling her knees up so she was semi-kneeling with her face pressed into her pillow to mute her sounds. She was too horny to not come now. She needed this.

_“Emma”_ , her mind’s Regina whispered. _“Emma, please….”_ Emma’s head filled with rapid flashes: a soft red mouth, long manicured fingers pushing a loose strand of dark hair behind her ears, a sharp ‘ _Miss Swan’_ in the heat of an argument….

“Fuuuuuck”, Emma groaned, coming hard against her own hand. It was a good one; she could feel it echoing all the way up her spine, making the hairs on her back stand up. She collapsed limply onto her bed, flushed from both her orgasm and the embarrassing truth that she’d just made herself come after a wet dream about Regina.

“Fucking Tinkerbell,” Emma muttered as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. This was all her fault. If she hadn’t screwed up the stupid pixie dust her subconscious would never have constructed such a weird dream.

***

When she pushed open the door to Granny’s, she saw the baby carrier first and was already half-way over to the table when she realised that the person who was balancing Neal on her knee was not Mary-Margaret but Regina.

She had that soft, tender expression on her face that Emma had only ever seen her wear when she looked at Henry as she gently bounced Neal in her arms. Emma contemplated backing out of the diner but Regina looked up and spotted her, her expression frozen.

“Hey,” Emma said, awkwardly shifting her weight.

“Your mother is in the bathroom, and she asked me to look watch your brother, before you get any ideas.”

“I didn’t,” Emma said quietly. She hesitated, then slid into the booth across from Regina.

“I see the leaving me alone is going well,” Regina said, but her lips twitched slightly and Emma realised that she wasn’t really annoyed.

Baby Neal reached up with his tiny fist to grab Regina’s hair, but at the last moment she managed to interject and made him hold onto her finger instead. She smiled down at him, a big, genuine smile which reached all the way across her face and made everything about her seem soft.

Emma’s palms suddenly felt sweaty and she shifted in her seat. Memories of her dream were suddenly rushing through her mind and she was glad to see Mary-Margaret making her way across to them.

Regina saw her glance and stood up, passing Neal to his mother as soon as she was at their table.

Mary-Margaret glanced between them and tentatively smiled at Regina. “Do you want to join us?”

Regina shook her head. “No, thank you. I had better get going.”

Mary-Margaret turned to Emma. “Regina is going to clear out the farm house and make sure that none of Zelena’s stuff is dangerous. We don’t want another accident like the portal.”

Emma nodded and looked at Regina, whose eyes were firmly fixed somewhere above Emma. “Do you need a hand?”

Regina shook her head and finally looked Emma in the eye. “I’ll be fine, thank you.” She reached over and stroked Neal’s cheek gently, before nodding at both Mary-Margaret and Emma and leaving the diner.

Mary-Margaret slid onto the bench. “I’m worried about her,” she said, looking at the door. “She just seems so defeated.”

Emma sighed. “I just don’t know what to do. I can’t undo what I did, and I don’t think I would if I could, but I want to help her.”

“Oh Emma, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. You did the right thing, you know that!”

Emma wondered why doing the right thing always seemed to suck. “Do you think there’s anything we can do?”

Mary-Margaret smiled gently. “I think we just need show her that we’re there for her. When we went back to the Enchanted Forest, I realised that more than anything, Regina is so lonely. She needs us, even when she says that she doesn’t.”

Emma gave her mother a bemused look. “It’s still so weird that you guys have made up. Even after everything on Neverland, I never thought I’d walk in here and see her holding your baby.”

Mary-Margaret smiled indulgently. “Your father isn’t that comfortable with it either, even though we have our memories back and he knows what Regina did for us. I think that sometimes it’s easier to forgive someone for the things they’ve done to you than for the things they’ve done to the people that you love.” She paused, searching for the right words. “I’m one of the only people who remembers what Regina was like before. She was everything I wanted to be. I would follow her around like a puppy. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.” She shook her head sadly. “I don’t know how she could stand to have me around all those years after what she blamed me for.”

Emma shifted in her seat as her mother’s eyes glazed over with memories. “Her fashion sense has certainly calmed down a bit,” Emma said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Mary-Margaret laughed. “I keep forgetting you’ve seen what she was like. She certainly wouldn’t have dressed like that when my father was still alive.” Her smile faded a little. “She hid so much of herself from us. I can’t believe that I lived with her for ten years and closed my eyes to how miserable she was.”

Emma reached across the table. “Hey, look. You were a child, and you can’t blame yourself. Cora was responsible for what happened to Regina, and it was Regina’s choice to spend her life trying get revenge.”

But Mary-Margaret’s eyes were wet and she shook her head, smiling sadly. “I was young, not stupid. I ignored the signs that Regina was unhappy because I didn’t want to see them.” She squeezed Emma’s hand gently. “It was just little things but I noticed. When my father and I were staying with her family after the proposal, for example, at dinner time, instead of servants coming round with dishes from which she could help herself like they did with the rest of us, Regina would get a small plate of food. Her mother controlled what she ate to make sure she didn’t put on weight. She got her waist measured every day. And then she married my father and-”

Mary-Margaret faltered, her eyes brimming with tears. “I never really thought about what it meant, that I had picked her and my father married her. Not until Cora’s spirit showed me those memories. Regina was just given to my father. I loved him so much, Emma, but it’s hard to reconcile the father I knew with the man who married a girl who was forty years younger than him against her will.”

Emma suddenly felt sick. Truthfully, she had never really thought about it either, what it meant when people said that Regina hadn’t wanted to marry the King. ‘Arranged marriage’ had always seemed like a business transaction when she thought about her father and Kathryn, two people who decided to be together for the good of their kingdoms. But this, an old, powerful man taking an eighteen year old girl against her will, this was something dark and threatening and Emma wondered if something like this would have been her fate if she had grown up in the Enchanted Forest.

She distinctly remembered asking Regina once what had happened to her to make her this way, and now, years later, burned with regret. It was awful to think about what Regina would have been forced to do, married to a King she did not love for ten years, locked in a castle with a girl who she blamed for the death of the man she loved, and forced to live in the shadow of a dead Queen.

She tried not let her mother see how disturbed she was; Mary-Margaret clearly blamed herself for a lot things that were not her fault, and Emma wasn’t about to make her feel guilty for something she had had no control over.

“Regina’s strong. She made it through. And she’s forgiven you. It’s time that you all tried to let go of the past.”

“She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met,” Mary-Margaret agreed. “In the Enchanted Forest, after she sent you two away, there were moments where I thought that she would just give up. She was so broken, Emma. I’ve never seen her like that, not even after Daniel. It was like she had nothing to live for. But we needed her, and she helped us even though she was in so much pain.”

The year Regina had spent without Henry still caused Emma to feel sickeningly guilty, even though rationally she knew that it was not her fault. If there was one thing she would remember until the day she died, it was Regina’s face when she saw them that morning at Granny’s.

“I hope she forgives me,” Emma sighed.

“She will,” Mary-Margaret said, smiling optimistically. “For Henry’s sake, if nothing else.”

Emma wasn’t so sure, but she hoped her mother was right.

***

Two days later, Emma was driving back to the station after dropping Henry off at Regina’s after school, when she saw Robin Hood standing with his hands in his pockets at the corner of Cherry Lane and Mifflin Street, under the shade of a large oak tree.

Emma pulled up alongside him and got out of the cruiser.

“Hey,” she said awkwardly. They’d never really had a conversation one on one before, and honestly she had no idea what kind of small talk to make with a man who, honest to god, lived in the forest with his Merry Men.

Robin, who had been looking down at the large white house hidden by a fence and hedges, turned to her and smiled. “Emma. How are you?”

“Fine,” she smiled back. “How are you doing? How’s Marian?”

“She is well. Roland is overjoyed to have her back. I am too, of course.” He looked back towards 108, the smile on his lips becoming wistful. “I have loved Marian since I met her, and I am so happy to have her back, but it all happened very quickly.”

Emma’s stomach twisted. She had spent so much time feeling guilty about Regina that she had never even spared a thought to how hard this must be for Robin, caught between the love for a woman he thought was dead and the feelings he had for Regina.

“I never knew that it was Regina who sentenced Marion to death,” Robin said. “I mean, I suspected that it had something to do with the search for Snow White, but I never thought to ask her. And now I know that I was falling in love with the woman who killed my wife. Even now that I know that, a part of me just can’t stay away from her.”

“I’m sorry I made things so hard for you. I honestly had no idea who she was when we took her with us,” Emma said.

Robin shook his head. “Roland has his mother back. Nothing is as important as that. Marian and I will find a way to reconnect.”

The way he said it made Emma wonder how exactly Marian had reacted to the news that Robin was apparently the True Love of the woman who had tried to have her killed. Still, Emma knew as well as anyone that you couldn’t just turn off feelings because it was no longer convenient to have them.

“Has Regina forgiven you yet?” Robin asked her with a smile.

Emma shook her head.

“She will,” Robin said firmly. “She likes you and she knows that you didn’t do this to hurt her.”

Emma wasn’t so sure, but since he was supposedly Regina’s soul mate and all, he probably knew what he was talking about.

“I’d better go back to the station,” Emma said, and almost laughed at the openly suspicious way Robin regarded her police cruiser. None of the Merry Men had yet dared to go for a ride in a car.

“Goodbye Emma,” Robin said, and with another long, wistful look down Mifflin Street, he turned around and disappeared towards the woods.

***

Four more days pass, and Emma dedicated her time to looking at the empty properties in Storybrooke. There weren’t many to choose from since the curse hadn’t created much spare accommodation (it wasn’t like they’d been trying to attract new people to Storybrooke, after all), and so the choice was fairly limited. It didn’t help that all of the vacant apartments seemed to be owned by Mr Gold, and something about having him as a landlord made her uneasy.

Emma had been avoiding Hook for the past few days as well. Every time he came by she pretended to have to be somewhere urgently, and although she felt guilty she had no idea how to even begin handling that situation. It was exhausting being with someone who cared for her more than she did for him, and it didn’t help that every time he kissed her she could hear Tinkerbell’s disapproving voice in her head lecturing her about True Love and all that jazz.

She was sipping her coffee, taking a break from sorting through the things that had finally been sent over from New York, when her phone rang. _Regina_. “Hello?” she answered hesitantly.

“Does your offer to help me with Zelena’s things still stand?” Regina opened without a greeting.

“Yeah, sure, of course!” Emma said quickly, and then rolled her eyes at herself. _Way to sound desperate, Swan_.

“I will pick you up in half an hour.”

“Ok.” Emma looked down at her tattered band t-shirt and jeans with a hole at the knee and decided that she would need to get changed. Regina always made her feel like she was gate-crashing a runway show and at least if she put a little effort in her clothes would be one less thing Regina could hate her for.

Regina ended the call without warning and Emma had to smirk. Almost like old times.

***

Emma had prepared herself for an awkward and silent ride out to the farm house but the moment she had buckled herself in, Regina began to speak.

“I’ve now been through all of Zelena’s things and I managed to dispose of most of it myself, but for some of the darker magic I may require some assistance.”

“Whatever you need,” Emma said earnestly. “But are you sure I can do it? I mean, most of the time my magic just seems to be instinct. Maybe you should ask someone like Blue or even Rumplestiltskin?”

“I don’t trust Blue or Rumple,” Regina said as she turned the Mercedes down into the forest.

Emma’s breath caught at the unspoken _but I trust you_. She remembered how certain Robin had been that Regina would forgive her.

“I’ll do anything you need me to,” Emma said firmly, trying to convey that Regina’s trust would not be misplaced this time. She contemplated apologising again, but if Regina wanted to act like nothing was wrong between them Emma certainly didn’t want to be the one to remind her how she had fucked up.

Regina directed her to the porch of the farm where boxes full of random objects stood, and directed her to carry them out onto the lawn.

“Let’s start relatively simply,” Regina said, and Emma wasn’t sure if she was talking to Emma or to herself.

She watched as Regina took a tall bottle filled with an icy blue liquid out of one of the boxes and placed it about six feet in front of Emma, before coming back to stand next her.

“Alright,” Regina said, turning her head towards her. “I am going to destroy it, and you are going to shield us from any adverse effects.”

Emma nodded, biting her bottom lip nervously. Regina’s eyes softened.

“Don’t worry, you said yourself that your magic works on instinct. Just visualise what you want to protect. You’ve done it before.” Regina turned her head back towards the bottle and raise her hands.

Emma took a deep breath. Regina was trusting her with this. She would not let her down. As she saw streams of bright purple energy emerge from Regina’s palms, she closed her eyes and visualised a wall between them and the bottle. Nothing was going to get through, she was going to keep Regina safe, she was going to-

Emma opened her eyes with a gasp as she felt the energy that Regina had fired at the bottle bounce back. The glass had shattered into a thousand pieces which were rebounding off the protective shield that Emma had thrown up, but the energy coming from Regina and reflecting back at them was passing through, probably because it wasn’t harmful. The feeling of it rushing over her was familiar; she had felt it that day in the mines, but this time she could dwell on it without the threat of the impending doom of the entire town.

It felt like the beginning of a sugar rush. The very tips of her fingers were tingling, the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention and she felt hot and cold at the same time. She had never felt so _alive_. She looked at Regina and saw that her cheeks were slightly flushed.

“Very good,” she praised, her voice slightly rough. “Ready to go again?”

Emma nodded. Some of the objects were harder than others, and the more energy it took to shatter them, the more Emma had to focus on her shield. The magic in the air was intoxicating. It was indescribable, almost like being drunk but with a clear head. She felt like she could do anything.

They had never created magic together without some threat to combat, and for the first time Emma could honestly say that she was enjoying her magic.

“Do you want to try one?” Regina asked, holding up a strange looking pocket watch.

“I don’t know,” Emma said hesitantly.

“You can do it,” Regina said firmly, and smiled at her, a smile that reached her eyes, and Emma’s head nodded without any further input from her brain.

Emma raised her hands and took a deep breath. Behind her, Regina quietly began instructing her. “Reach out with your magic and feel the energy inside the watch. Once you have it, concentrate and then focus your energy on destroying it. Don’t worry about anything else, I’ll help you if you can’t manage.”

Emma nodded and closed her eyes. She imagined her magic reaching out and began sensing for the power within the clock. She could feel Regina’s powerful magic behind her, like a wall of energy pushing her forward, and then she found what she was looking for. It felt dark and dangerous and for a moment she wavered, but then she felt Regina’s hand on her shoulder, nudging her on. Emma let go and sent as much of her power as she could outwards.

It felt unlike anything she had ever done before. It was better than the lunar eclipse, better than opening the portal. This magic was everywhere around her, was flooding back at them as the watch shattered and the darkness within it was destroyed.

She heard Regina’s gasp behind her as she was hit with Emma’s energy, and when Emma turned around Regina’s eyes were bright and her chest was moving quickly.

“That was,” Emma began, but she had no idea how to finish. “I had no idea magic could feel like that.”

“It’s rare to find someone you are so in tune with,” Regina said softly, her eyes never leaving Emma’s face. “I’ve only had something similar to this once before, with Maleficent, and we rarely fought alongside each other.”

Emma didn’t know what to say. Instead, she turned back to the boxes and tried not to think about the feeling of Regina’s warm magic embracing her, and the way her panties were uncomfortably moist.

There were only a few items left and they took it in turns to blast them to pieces. By the time they were done, dusk was falling over the trees.

“I’m sorry about Zelena,” Emma said as they walked back to the farm house in the semi-darkness.

“I didn’t realise that she was thinking about-” Regina trailed off, searching for the words. “I thought that maybe, in time, if I could get her to listen to me, she might understand that she was lucky to escape our mother. I thought that maybe without her magic I would be able to get through to her.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Emma said firmly. “We shouldn’t have left her alone, that was a stupid mistake.”

“It’s not your fault either,” Regina said softly.

Emma regretted starting this conversation. The buzz of her magic was leaving her and she was worried that Regina might remember how badly Emma had screwed up any minute.

But Regina seemed fairly mellow as they walked to her car. “How are you finding living with a baby?” she asked.

Emma smiled. “It’s taking some getting used to. I’m actually looking for an apartment right now. But Neal is a sweetheart.”

Regina grimaced and Emma grinned right back at her. “You hate that name, don’t you?” she asked.

“I don’t hate it,” Regina responded, “it’s just that calling a Prince Neal is like calling a child of this world Apple or Blanket.”

Emma sniggered, both at the comparison and at the fact that Regina had clearly read _Hello!_ magazine at some point. This was made even funnier by the fact that Emma knew that the magazines in Storybrooke’s _Fairy Godmother_ salon were all from the eighties, and therefore Regina had probably gone out and bought it.

“What do you think of the name?” Regina asked her once Emma had stopped laughing.

Emma sighed. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I know this sounds awful but it’s easier to think nice things about Neal now that he’s gone. I hadn’t really forgiven him until the end, and it’s a bit weird to think that now I’m going to be calling my baby brother by that name, you know?”

“Henry thinks it’s a bit strange as well,” Regina agreed with a gentle look in Emma’s direction. “I don’t doubt that your mother meant well though. Naming is very important in the Enchanted Forest, much more so than it is here.”

She fell quiet and Emma thought about Regina as a child, a Princess at the very bottom of the order of succession to a small kingdom, with a mother who was desperate to make her a Queen. A baby with a big name and a huge destiny weighing on her shoulders.

“Shit!” Emma sank low into her seat as they turned onto her street. Hook was sitting on the steps outside her building. “Can you please let me out round the corner?”

Regina’s lips quirked, but she passed Emma’s door without slowing and a glance in the wing mirror told her that Hook hadn’t seen them pass.

“May I ask why you’re hiding from your pirate?” Regina parked behind a blue Ford.

Emma was tempted to tell her that that was none of her business, which was true, but Regina had been so normal with her this afternoon and Emma didn’t want to ruin the fragile truce between them.

“He’s not my pirate. And I’m just not sure what I want, and he’s always there. I feel like I don’t have any room to breathe,” she explained quietly.

Regina didn’t say anything for a moment, and just watched Emma who was looking at her hands resting in her lap. “If you have to break his heart,” she said, in the gentlest voice she had ever used towards Emma, “do it soon, and do it quickly. Be honest but firm. If he’s going to move on you need to make sure he understands that you don’t feel the same.”

Emma looked up at Regina and her heart started thumping hard in her chest. Just a few days ago she had been sure Hook was what she wanted, but now Regina’s advice seemed like the logical course of action. And really, since when was the Evil Queen so good at giving relationship advice?

Around them, the street lights clicked on automatically and the inside of the Mercedes was lit up in the soft orange light of the energy saving bulbs which Tinkerbell had been installing all over town. It made Regina’s skin look warm and glowing, like after an afternoon spent in the warm summer sun. Emma suddenly wanted to reach over and touch her. Her palms were sweaty and she tried to inconspicuously wipe them on her jeans.

Regina looked at her curiously, her eyes widening.

A knock on the window made them both jump about a mile in the air. Henry stood there beaming and waving at them both, and David stood behind him smiling apologetically.

Emma tried to slow her racing heart and opened the door. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Henry ignored her. “Why are you guys parked all the way round here?”

Emma hesitated but Regina jumped in. “There were no spaces closer.”

David looked at them suspiciously, but Henry seemed to accept the excuse.

“Henry, why don’t you and David go along to the loft and I’ll be there in a minute.”

Henry smiled, and with a quick ‘bye’ to his mother he had shut Emma’s door and headed down the road with David.

Emma took a deep breath, and looked back at Regina. “Thank you for today,” she said seriously.

Regina looked away, almost like she was embarrassed. “Don’t be silly, you were helping me.”

Emma shook her head. “Thank you for trusting me. And for helping me with my magic. You’re right, I think I am wasting my potential, and I would really like it if you’d help me with it, when you’re ready to forgive me.”

“Emma,” Regina began, “I know you didn’t hurt me on purpose. I just never thought I’d get another chance at love, and now that chance is gone.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” Emma said, voice wavering. She had never seen Regina this open, this vulnerable, and once again she felt like the world’s greatest asshole.

“I know,” Regina said, smiling sadly. “I know you are.” She cleared her throat and sat up straighter, and Emma understood that the moment was over.

“I’ll see you soon,” Emma said quickly, and opened her door.

“Have a good evening,” Regina replied.

Emma stood for a moment on the kerb, gathering her thoughts, before heading towards the loft. It was chillier now without the sunlight and the magic to warm her, and she rubbed her hands up and down her arms, sighing in relief when she saw the empty stoop and realised that Hook had given up for the night.


	2. Two

After the way their magic had made Emma feel that afternoon, she was not surprised when that night, her dreams were full of Regina again.

_They were standing in the field by the farm house, and Regina was standing in front of her, both arms outstretched with her palms facing upwards._

_“Come on Emma. It’s instinct,” Regina whispered._

_Emma stopped hesitating and placed both of her hands on top of Regina’s. In that instant, she felt their magic connecting, washing over her in wave after wave of strong, pulsing pleasure._

_“Feel how strong it is,” Regina said, her face flushed and her eyes bright with energy._

_Emma could feel the power of their combined magic lifting them gently and she felt like she was floating on cotton, a foot above the ground and held upright by Regina’s soft, strong grip on her hands._

_Her hands felt warm, a warmth which travelled up her arms and down her neck, making her nipples hard and causing her to gasp. Across from her, she saw Regina’s eyes close in pleasure._

_“See what we can do together, Emma,” she whispered as Emma felt a sticky wetness building between her legs. She could feel Regina all over her, in every nerve ending. “Feel what I can do to you.”_

Emma woke up, the sound of banging in the kitchen just outside her door pulling her abruptly from the dream. Her back was taut with tension, and she could feel that her thighs were damp. Unfortunately, with Henry and her parents right outside her room, she didn’t have the luxury of finishing herself off, despite feeling incredibly wound up.

She made it through breakfast and managed a quick, semi-satisfying orgasm in the shower before heading into town. It was a Sunday and she was technically off work, but most trouble seemed to kick off on the weekends when some of the town’s inhabitants had nothing better to do than remember who exactly they hated from three decades ago and decided to do something about it.

On her way to Granny’s, where half the town seemed to congregate after church, she caught sight of Tinkerbell, who was pinning _Reduce Reuse Recycle_ posters up around town. Emma hesitated, and then crossed the road with a small wave to announce her presence.

“Ah, the Saviour,” Tinkerbell sneered. “I see you’ve finally stopped hiding from me.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Emma lied defensively, “I was thinking.”

“I hope it didn’t hurt too much,” Tinkerbell shot back, using her staple-gun a little more aggressively than Emma was comfortable with.

“Look, can I talk to you?”

Tinkerbell looked her up and down, and then took pity on her and turned fully to face her. “I take it this is about the pixie dust?”

“Something must have gone wrong,” Emma answered quickly. “I mean, I must have been standing too close or something. Or you messed up the spell.”

“The spell worked perfectly well,” Tinkerbell said, annoyed. “If I had gotten it wrong nothing would have happened. And you can’t stand too close to pixie dust. Honestly, do you know _anything_ about magic?”

Emma shook her head. “There’s a mistake somewhere. I’m not Regina’s True Love. I mean, come on, I’m nothing like Robin Hood. And besides, I’m a girl!”

“Does that make a difference?” Tinkerbell asked curiously. “I was under the impression that in this world it is also common for women to be with women and men to be with men?”

“Also common?” Emma chocked out. “You mean that in the Enchanted Forest there are lesbian princesses?”

Tinkerbell regarded her with confusion. “Well, first-born princes and princesses are encouraged to marry those of the opposite gender to facilitate an heir, but other than that it is quite common. As far as I know, Regina has had female lovers as well as male ones.”

Emma’s face suddenly felt hot, like all the blood in her body was rushing to her cheeks. Her voice came out strangled. “Regina has dated women?”

But Tinkerbell seemed bored with that aspect of the conversation. “Have you told her about the pixie dust yet?”

“No!” Emma exclaimed, horrified, and she quickly glanced around to make sure no one in the vicinity had heard them. “And keep your voice down. I told you, this has to be a mistake. I mean, we don’t even like each other most of the time. We’ve only recently even started to tolerate each other. And yeah, she gave me and Henry this amazing life in New York, but still, we have nothing in common…”

Her ramble trailed off as Tinkerbell started smirking. “Nothing in common, eh? What about that magic you were making in the field yesterday?” She bent down and picked up her posters, moving around Emma and towards the communal noticeboard across from Granny’s.

“How do you know about that?” Emma demanded, quickly following her.

Tinkerbell smirked. “Just because you’re not talking to Regina doesn’t mean I’m not.”

“I am talking to her, I’m just not telling her stuff that is clearly a big misunderstanding.”

“I swear to the ancient Queen of the Fae,” Tinkerbell exploded, clearly exasperated, “between you and Regina you’d think finding out who your True Love is was the worst thing in the world! She spends thirty years ignoring hers, you decide that it’s all a big mistake. Do you know how much whining we have to listen to from people wish it could be easy and that there was just a way of knowing who the right person for them is? And you know, and you’re just going to ignore it because you’re a coward!”

Emma stepped back instinctively. Tinkerbell might be tiny, but when she got angry she was a little scary. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help,” she tried to pacify her, “I just think there might be a tiny mix up somewhere.”

“Come and find me when you decide to open your eyes to the truth,” Tinkerbell sighed, slapping two posters up like she’d been using a staple-gun instead of a wand all her life, and then walking away from Emma who stood, more confused than ever, wondering what the hell she was supposed to think now.

***

The next time Emma saw Regina was a week later, when she was having dinner with Henry at Granny’s. Henry had his back to the door but Emma saw Regina approaching, and then, to her growing horror, saw that Robin, Marian and Roland were coming towards the diner from the other side.

She couldn’t see Regina’s face in the semi-darkness of dusk, but she saw her posture straighten and her shoulders stiffen, like she was preparing for battle. Emma suddenly realised that this was Regina’s first ever awkward run-in with an ex and his new partner, and tried not to think about how everyone that Regina had ever been with before Robin was dead.

“Henry,” she said urgently, “Go out there and save your Mom, quickly.”

Henry turned and peered out of the window, and Emma realised just how much he’d grown up when he didn’t say a word but slipped out of his seat and dashed from the diner to where the awkward meeting had just begun.

Emma could see that Robin’s posture was tense and he was rubbing his neck, and Marian had both her hands on Roland’s shoulders. _Don’t touch, he’s mine_.

The look of relief on Regina’s face when Henry came out and defused the tense meeting made Emma’s heart ache for her.

“Do you want to come and eat with us, Mom?” Henry asked as he pulled Regina into the diner, and Emma smiled at her to let her know she was welcome.

Regina might have declined if not for the fact that the Hood family were now occupying the booth two down from them, and from her pale face and pinched brows Emma could tell that she wasn’t ready to see the happy family in action yet. Instead, she sank onto the seat next to Henry and let him babble away about the loft that Emma had finally decided on.

Emma tried to listen, but she kept being distracted by strange things, like when had Regina’s hair gotten longer, and had she seen that dress on her before because it was beautiful and it made her eyes stand out, and wasn’t she cold in those short sleeves, but no she wasn’t because her arms were all smooth, and why had she never noticed that small mole on Regina’s upper arm before, and really, Regina should smile more often because it made her look so pretty and much less frightening, and she really had lovely teeth (did they have orthodontists in the Enchanted Forest?) and-

“Emma?” Henry snapped his fingers in front of her face which Regina immediately chided.

“Sorry,” she tried to smile, “I was just thinking about something. What were you saying?”

***

That night’s dream was the most disturbing to date.

_Emma was lying on her bed, eyes closed, with a warm, soft arm wrapped around her. It was so comfortable that she didn’t want to open her eyes, but soft lips were teasing her earlobe and she couldn’t help but let a small giggle escape her lips, giving away that she was awake._

_Regina turned her around and smiled at her, openly and unreservedly, like she was the most important thing in the world. “You are so beautiful,” she told her earnestly. “I love you. I love you so much.”_

_And Emma was so happy, because she had been waiting to hear that, and suddenly they weren’t lying down anymore, they were back in the field surrounded by all of the magical objects, and Regina was still smiling. “I love you,” she repeated, “I trust you.”_

_And Emma smiled and then they both reached out together and just before their hands connected and the magic overwhelmed them, Emma said “I love you too.”_

***

The next day, Emma couldn’t concentrate on anything. Tinkerbell had really gotten to her, it seemed, with her stupid theories and her ridiculous lectures. Emma had never dreamt anything like that before. She was angry too, because she’d apologised a million times by now and yet the guilt she still felt was fuelling these stupid dreams. There was only one way she could think of to stop all this nonsense, and that was to finally move forward with her life.

After her shift, she headed straight out to Granny’s. She was about to go around the back to the B & B entrance when she almost knocked Regina over, who was coming out of the diner with a coffee-to-go in her hands.

“Emma,” she smiled at her, “are you meeting someone here?”

“You could say that,” Emma said and glanced towards the B&B’s door. Regina faltered slightly, and Emma knew that she knew exactly why Emma was here.

“Well I won’t keep you,” she said quickly and brushed past her.

Emma felt a bizarre urge to follow her, but she had a plan and decided that, for once, she was going to do what she wanted and what was good and right for her, instead of being the Saviour.

***

Hook saw in her face to not ask questions when he opened the door, and this time Emma concentrated hard and kept her head in the game.

He was a much gentler lover than she had been expecting, and it felt good to have his weight above her, anchoring her in the moment. Every time her mind strayed towards dark, large eyes, she kissed him hard enough to need to gasp for air, and that was almost enough to forget.

He liked it when she scratched her nails down his back and when she slid her hand between them to rub her clit while he moved within her, he looked down at her with so much emotion that she shut her eyes quickly.

This was supposed to stop her from thinking for a few hours, but even as she felt herself come, waves of guilt followed those of pleasure. She felt dirty, like she’d used Killian and like she’d broken something, and she didn’t hang around long afterwards. She mumbled something about her parents expecting her home and she tried to look him in the eyes when she said that she’d had a great time.

When she got in, the loft was quiet, and for a moment she thought that she could sneak in undetected, but then Mary-Margaret emerged down the stairs holding a basket of laundry.

“Emma! David just took Neal out for a walk, I bet if you hurried you could catch them if you feel like it?”

Emma shook her head, a lump suddenly in her throat. She wondered if she could make it to her room before crying.

“Emma? What’s wrong?”

The moment her mother’s hand landed on her arm, the dam burst and Emma was suddenly sobbing into her shoulder.

With a quiet understanding that Emma had only recently begun to appreciate, Mary-Margaret quickly led her to her bedroom and laid Emma down on the bed, her head in her mother’s lap and her hair being gently stroked.

Emma couldn’t remember the last time she had cried like this but it was cathartic; even if she had wanted to she wouldn’t have been able to stop the deep, cleansing sobs bursting out of her.

“Shhh, it’s alright sweetheart,” Mary-Margaret whispered, combing her fingers through her hair and patiently wiping at the mascara tracks with the Kleenex from Emma’s nightstand.

After about ten minutes, when her sobs had slowed to gentle hiccups and her head ached, Emma sat up and faced her mother. “I guess you wouldn’t believe me if I said it was PMS?”

Mary-Margaret shook her head, then leaned over and placed a hand on her cheek. “You don’t have to explain,” she said gently, “but I hope you know that you can tell me anything. What you tell me is between us, and if you don’t want me to I won’t share it with anyone, not even with your father.”

That caused a few more tears to leak out of Emma’s eyes and her chest ached for all the times as a teenager where she could have desperately used a mother like this.

“I slept with Hook,” Emma opened, “and I’m pretty sure that I don’t love him. And I lied about the fairy dust and Regina.”

Mary-Margaret looked a bit confused, and Emma could tell that she was deliberately trying to be cool about the her-daughter-and-sex thing. Deciding to start with the least icky part, she asked “Why did you lie?”

“Because when we did it,” Emma whispered, “the pixie dust said that I was Regina’s true love.”

And then, because Emma’s tear ducts were acting like stupid girls that day, she burst into tears all over again.

***

That evening, her mother was more like Mary-Margaret than she had been since the curse broke the first time. She handled David when he got back with Neal, and didn’t push Emma until she had fully cried herself out, and sat with her in the dim light of Emma’s reading light while night fell outside the window.

“She can’t be my true love,” Emma whispered into the silence. “She can’t be.”

Her mother’s hands stilled in her hair. “It’s not that crazy,” she said hesitantly, like Emma was a wild animal prone to being startled. “You two have a lot in common.”

Emma turned her head and looked up at her incredulously. “Like what?”

“You’re both so strong. You both love Henry more than anything. You’ve both been through so much and yet you’re still fighting.” She hesitated again. “And then there’s the magic. When Blue was here the other week, she was telling me that the bonds between two magical people can be very strong. And what you and Regina have done together with your magic….” She trailed off.

“She’s tried to kill us all,” Emma whispered.

“Sweetheart,” her mother said with a smile on her lips, “I think you’ll be hard pressed to find any royal marriage in the history of the Enchanted Forest where at some point family members on either side have not tried to murder each other.”

Emma sat up. “How can you be taking this so well? I know you made up with her but she’s still the Evil Queen!”

“No she’s not,” Mary-Margaret said gently, “and you know that better than anyone. She’s Regina, the woman who was willing to sacrifice her own happiness for Henry and you, the woman who helped me and David protect our unborn child even though she didn’t have to, the woman who managed to defeat the darkness within herself and stop Zelena. And finding your True Love is the most amazing thing in the whole world. It makes you feel so strong, like you can do anything when they’re by your side. I want that for you more than anything, and if that’s with Regina then so be it. Although it is going to take some getting used to.”

Emma looked at her, unable to put into words what was going through her mind. _What if I mess it up? What if she rejects me? What if she can never forgive me? What if Henry doesn’t approve?_ “I’m scared,” she says instead, and realised how strange it was that she really meant that now, when the wicked witch was vanquished and there was no Peter Pan threatening the town and no Cora demanding vengeance.

“That’s alright, honey,” her mother said, smiling. “Being scared is how you know you have something to lose.”

***

In many ways, having Mary-Margaret know her secret was a great relief. For one thing, she stopped shoving her at Hook like he was a dog and she was a very tasty bone. She was also very supportive when Emma broke things off with him, which was good because the whole thing was entirely awful.

Seeing grown men cry was awkward in general, but Emma genuinely cared for him, and in a strange way he’d become her closest friend and confidant since he had retrieved her from New York. She knew, if it hadn’t been for the pixie dust revelation, she could have been happy with him. Maybe even fallen in love with him.

But Emma also knew that it wouldn’t be fair to him to keep stringing him along, especially because Regina was rapidly becoming all that she could think about.

Emma was beginning to think that True Love was like one of those prophecies in Harry Potter, which were kind of self-fulfilling in that they only came true when someone heard them and then passed it on, and the people who they were about then acted in a certain way because of said prophecy.

If she had never used the pixie dust, she would never have thought of Regina this way. At least, she was pretty sure. Unless the whole going back in time thing and ruining Regina’s relationship and then coming back and discovering that she was her True Love thing was all part of Emma’s destiny as well?

The whole thing made her head hurt and she tried not to think about it too much.

She didn’t mention Regina when she ended things with Hook, but she still tried to be as honest and fair as possible. Gentle but firm, like Regina had said. Mary-Margaret had cheered her up with cookie-dough ice cream afterwards, but Emma still felt horribly guilty and avoided Granny’s for the next fortnight.

That had the unfortunate side-effect of rarely seeing Regina, and Emma had taken to gently interrogating Henry about her whenever he was over. Whenever she asked after her, Emma made sure not to look at her mother who always stood by with a knowing look on her face and usually cornered her after Henry had left the room to badger her about talking to Regina.

“She needs space, and I’m going to give it to her,” Emma always said, and even though Mary-Margaret clearly disagreed, she didn’t push.

When Emma finally moved out of the loft, the whole thing was much less emotional than she had feared because Neal had started teething and all he seemed to do was scream, which distracted her parents and meant that Emma’s strongest emotion was relief at the quiet of having her own space.

Since all their stuff had arrived from New York, Henry’s second bedroom looked almost as lived in as the one in Mifflin Street, and although the apartment was nowhere near as swanky as what they’d had in New York, when they finally bade her parents good night and revelled in having their own space, Emma felt transported back into that blissfully happy year.

There was still some unpacking to do but she decided it could wait, and she and Henry decided to test their new microwave by making a large bag of buttery popcorn.

There was a knock on the door just as the microwave pinged.

“I’ll get it!” Henry called and Emma smiled, pulling the only bowl she’d unpacked so far (a large plastic mixing bowl) from the cupboard above her and emptying the popcorn into it.

“Mom?” she heard from the hallway.

Emma almost dropped the popcorn, and half the bag now littered the countertop. “Shit shit shit!” She managed to sweep them all back into the bowl before Henry and Regina arrived in the kitchen.

Regina was holding something wrapped in tinfoil, but Emma had a hard time not focusing on her high-heeled black boots, which almost put them at eye level and which were perhaps the sexiest things she had ever seen.

“I see you’re settled in. I just came by to bring you this.” She handed Emma the plate and when she peered under the foil, she gasped.

“Oh my god, Regina, is that lemon meringue pie?”

“I had some ingredients that needed using up,” Regina said nonchalantly, but Emma could tell that she was pleased at the reaction.

“Do you want some?” Emma searched her cupboards trying to figure out where Mary-Margaret had put her plates.

“Now?” Regina sounded horrified. “In combination with _that_?” She pointed at the bowl of popcorn.

“Popcorn pretty much goes with anything, Mom,” Henry explained, and Regina shook her head in despair.

Still, they persuaded her to have a small slice, with Emma and Regina sitting on the brand new sofa and Henry crouched on the floor as the other chairs hadn’t arrived yet, and the evening ended with a game of ‘who could tell the most embarrassing Henry stories’.

After he had gone to his room at half past ten, Emma suddenly realised that she was alone with Regina for the first time in weeks. “So,” she began, trying to prevent the silence from becoming awkward, “how are you?”

Regina grabbed two pieces of popcorn from the bowl which made Emma grin. “I’m better,” she replied after a pause. “I have Henry back and that makes me happier than I can say.”

Emma smiled at her, and wondered if there was a polite way to ask ‘so, are you still bummed out about your ex-boyfriends wife?’.

“You should come over for dinner next week and we’ll work on your magic,” Regina said abruptly, like she hadn’t quite planned to extend the invitation until it came tumbling out of her mouth.

“That sounds great,” Emma said quickly before Regina could take it back. “Think I’m ready to start on teleportation yet?”

Regina laughed, and Emma’s stomach flopped pleasantly. “I think we have some way to go before we try that, you wouldn’t want to end up splinched would you?”

Emma’s jaw dropped. “That’s a real thing? Oh my god!” Then she saw that Regina was trying to hide an evil smirk. “I can’t believe I fell for that,” she said and threw some popcorn at Regina.

“I think we’ll start with something a little simpler,” Regina said, still grinning. “Teleportation isn’t hard, per se, but it takes a lot of faith in one’s own magic and I’m not sure that you trust yourself enough yet.”

“You’re the boss,” Emma replied, and tried not to think about the many dirty ways she wished that were true.

***

Something simpler turned out to be helping Regina cook by attempting to make the knife magically slice the vegetables. It turned out that, without the life or death motivators, Emma found it a lot harder to tap into her magic. She was staring at the damn onion so hard she was surprised it hadn’t exploded yet.

“Relax,” Regina said gently. She was a much more chilled out teacher when her sister wasn’t on a rampage through Storybrooke. “Close your eyes.”

That seemed like a terrible idea when the point was to control a pretty big knife, but Regina glared at her pointedly until she did what she was told.

“Now,” Regina said, and her voice seemed to be coming closer, “I want you to reach out with your magic and feel for the knife. Imagine how it feels in your hand. Control it. Good. Now open your eyes.”

Emma did, and saw that the knife was smoothly slicing through the onion. She bounced a little and smiled proudly at Regina. “I did it!”

“Yes, you did. Now, try and speed it up or we won’t eat until next week.”

Emma rolled her eyes fondly but concentrated harder. Regina didn’t seem to intend on doing anything other than supervise, but she didn’t let Emma slack. She wasn’t even allowed to reach for the pepper (“Use your magic and summon it!”), and soon the kitchen smelled of Bolognese.

“Couldn’t you have just conjured up the meal?” Emma asked as she floated the colander towards the sink.

“And how will you learn if I just do everything for you?”

Despite her snarking, Regina was actually being very patient with Emma. She had expected some exasperated calls of ‘Miss Swan!’ but for some reason Regina was being very gentle with her. It was nothing like the day with the bridge and Emma was grateful; there were only so many near-death experiences a girl could take per year.

“Did you learn all of your magic from Rumplestiltskin?” Emma asked cautiously. She had no idea whether this might be a sore subject now considering everything that they had learned about Zelena.

Regina waved her hand and the cupboard which held the plates opened. She looked pointedly at Emma who grinned and hoped to god that she didn’t smash up Regina’s crockery as she began floating them through to the dining room.

“I learned the basics from him,” Regina said after a moment. “But I was very lonely for a long time, and Rumple had other things to do other than teach me.” She frowned and Emma knew she was thinking of Zelena. “He left me some books though, and my mother had some as well, and I taught myself many things when the King and Snow were away.”

“That’s so cool,” Emma said, then stumbled over her own feet and the plates crashed into the table with a lot more force than necessary.

Regina winced audibly, but Emma’s remorseful frown seemed to stop the impending lecture.

“I was actually thinking that you might be interested in some of my books, now that we can afford to take a little more time with this. I’ve been translating some of the Elfish texts that I have into English for you.”

Emma stopped and looked at her in awe. “You have?”

Regina’s cheeks flushed and she stopped making eye contact. “Well if you don’t learn the theory at some point it’s only a matter of time before you start causing havoc,” she said sharply, and began straightening the plates that Emma had crash-landed. “Honestly, you’d think you’ve never laid a table before. Henry could do this when he was three.”

Emma was touched. It was one thing for Regina to agree to teach her magic, but it was another for her to go out of her way to help her. Obviously she had no idea how hard it was to translate Elfish, but she imagined that it couldn’t be that easy.

Regina didn’t seem as though she wanted to continue that line of conversation though; she called Henry’s name and began pouring juice for the three of them.

At dinner Henry gave them a blow-by-blow account of how he’d changed his first diaper and how gross it had been. Regina then made Emma magically load the dishwasher, and Emma started to get the impression that this whole ‘I’ll teach you magic’ thing was an excuse for Regina to get her to act as her maid.

“I bet you miss having all those servants,” she grumbled at Regina who was standing with her arms crossed, looking far too please with herself while plate after plate was slowly lowered into the machine.

“Actually, I don’t miss it at all,” Regina retorted. “Although it certainly took some getting used to. You should have seen my initial attempts at cooking when I arrived here.”

Emma looked at her in surprise. “You don’t miss having people to do things for you?” Regina was, after all, the bossiest woman she had ever met.

“There is a lot of freedom in privacy,” Regina said quietly. “When I was growing up and then even more so when I was Queen, I never had a moment where I was not followed or guarded. I could not have a bath without maids who would fill it for me. I could not move without a guard accompanying me.” She hesitated, and her voice became harder. “When I was newly married, if my period did not come the day my maids thought it should, the whole castle would be buzzing with the news that I was pregnant. That kind of scrutiny is exhausting.”

Emma had never thought about it like that. Sure, in theory having someone do your laundry was awesome, but would she really want them to go through her things? Especially now that she seemed to be having almost nightly dreams about Regina which left her boxers in a pretty embarrassing state.

“Still,” Emma tried to lighten the mood, “I bet you never had to clean the floors when you were Queen.”

Regina’s face glazed over, and for a moment she seemed far away. “There were many years,” she said distantly, “when I would have gladly scrubbed every floor in the castle for the rest of my existence if it had given me my freedom.”

And suddenly Emma thought about that awful conversation with Mary-Margaret about Regina’s marriage, and she felt sick.

“What’s for dessert, Mom?” Henry interrupted, pulling Regina from her memories.

Regina pulled out another lemon meringue pie, and slowly the cold, sick feeling left Emma’s stomach.

***

Over the next month, Emma and Regina met at least twice a week to work on Emma’s magic. Regina insisted that it was important for Emma to build a solid foundation to gain trust in her own powers, and Emma was happy to go along with her plan.

She tried to spend at least half an hour a day with the books which Regina had started translating for her, but it was slow going. There was a lot of theory and half the time Emma had no idea what was going on. Regina was a surprisingly patient teacher though; sometimes they sat for hours in Granny’s with the books between them, and Regina would explain and gesticulate and Emma would try her best to concentrate and not stare at Regina like a love-sick adolescent.

It was starting to get difficult to hide the way she felt though. Emma couldn’t remember why she had thought initially that the idea of liking Regina was ridiculous. She had a fantastic, albeit dry, sense of humour, and she was undoubtedly one of the smartest women Emma had ever met.

And she had no idea how she had ever gotten any work done around Regina back in the first year when she moved to Storybrooke, because when she had the stern, concentrating look on her face, all Emma could think about was pushing her up against the nearest wall and kissing her until Regina couldn’t think anymore.

Her mother was also not helping matters. At least three times a week she would ask Emma if she was going to maybe ask Regina on a date, or tell her how she felt, but Emma always shot her down.

Sometimes, it felt like there was something between them. When Regina would help her with her magic and she could feel their connection, Regina always looked at her with wide, open eyes that often featured in Emma’s dreams.

She knew that there was a sexual energy between them, that much was clear from the way that they were both obviously turned on when they made magic together, but Emma had no interest in being Regina’s rebound fuck-buddy.

Regina rarely spoke about Robin, even though Emma was almost certain that she’d been forgiven. Sometimes she mentioned that the house felt too quiet, but she never blamed Emma to her face again and Emma in turn tried to be there for Regina as much as she would allow it.

Still, Emma never brought up the whole True Love thing, despite the fact that, whenever Tinkerbell saw them together, she rolled her eyes dramatically. Although Regina had questioned her about it, Emma had said that they had had a falling out over Tinkerbell’s idea that Emma should ride around town on a bike instead of a squad car (which had happened, so it wasn’t technically a lie). She had no idea how Regina would react, and figured that it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell her.

“I don’t understand why you’re being such a chicken about this,” her mother would say to her. “She’s translating books for you, she’s voluntarily spending time with you, she lets you use her kitchen! She clearly likes you!”

“Well, we’re sort of friends now,” Emma would reply, “but that doesn’t mean she’s appreciate me rocking up and being all, ‘hey, I think we might be soul mates’!”

Still, Emma contemplated as she sat next to Regina on a warm spring night on Regina’s loveseat, nursing a glass of red wine, things were pretty good between them.

Regina seemed to think so to, because she glanced over at Emma and then started chuckling. “In a million years, I would never have thought that I would ever count you as a friend.”

Emma’s smiled back at her. “I think I really started to look at you differently when you gave me and Henry that beautiful life in New York,” she replied. “That’s the most special thing anyone has ever done for me.”

Regina’s eyes glinted and she reached up with her index finger to rub at the corners of her eyes. “Let’s not talk about that tonight,” she said, her voice heavy with emotion.

Emma met her eyes again and suddenly the space between them seemed both too large and too small. The tension that usually only appeared when they made magic together was suddenly in the air, and before she could stop herself or think about it, Emma blurted out “I have to tell you something.”

The tone in which she said it put Regina on guard immediately and the soft, fond look on her face disappeared. “What is it?”

“Ok, look, don’t get angry,” Emma started, and realised that this was already going terribly when Regina put her wine glass down. _Probably so she has her hands free to strangle me_ , Emma thought. “Right after what happened with Marian, I went to Tinkerbell and asked her to help me find your next closest True Love.”

Regina’s face became a mask; her lips pursed and her eyebrows raised.

“So I stole some pixie dust from Blue and Tinkerbell did this thing with Robin’s hair so he was excluded, and then we found out who it was.”

“And you decided to keep the knowledge secret from me in case you needed some sort of ransom in the future, in the event that I go back to my evil ways?” Regina asked sharply.

“No!” Emma was horrified. “Regina, I didn’t tell you because I thought something had gone wrong and then I wasn’t sure what to do, and I didn’t think you’d appreciate me meddling-”

“So the thought did occur to you, then, that it is a complete invasion of my privacy to use pixie dust in this way? Only for you to then decide to keep the knowledge from me! Did you tell your whole Charming family? Has the whole of Storybrooke been gossiping about my love life?”

“No, Regina, come on! I would never do that to you. I’m sorry, I was only trying to do something nice for you-“

“Something nice for me?” Regina scoffed and got up from the loveseat. Emma winced as she began pacing; that was always a bad, bad sign. “I thought I had made my feelings perfectly clear about meddling in my life! I can’t believe Tinkerbell did this again!”

“It was me!” Emma shouted. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but I was confused because it was me. I’m your True Love, and I didn’t know what to do or how I felt so I didn’t say anything. I’m sorry, I was only trying to make up for what I did. I wasn’t expecting this.”

Regina didn’t move or speak. She just looked at Emma with an unreadable expression on her face. “Please leave now,” she finally said, her voice quiet and low, like a distant rumble of thunder.

“Regina,” Emma pleaded, but she was already stalking back to the house, arms crossed, without looking back at Emma.

***

When she got back to her apartment, Emma slammed her fist into the wall of her room, furious at herself and at Regina. Her emotions changed so quickly she couldn’t keep up, from guilt to anger to pain to worry.

What if she had messed things up? Should she have kept this from Regina forever and hoped that things would develop naturally? But what if Regina had found someone else? And anyway, that would have been dishonest. Why had Emma even thought that meddling in Regina’s love life was a good idea? And when, exactly, had she started falling in love with her?

Frustrated tears ran down her face and she kicked her new Ikea bed with as much force as she dared, then threw herself onto her comforter and groaned into her pillow. How did everything get so messed up?

There was suddenly a sharp rapping on the door. Emma contemplated ignoring it; she was in no mood for visitors, but the knocking continued. Emma wiped her eyes and stumbled over her shoes on the way to the door. “Fuck,” she grumbled, sliding the chain back and opening the door to reveal a determined looking Regina.

“Regina?”

Emma moved aside as Regina invited herself in and stalked past her into the living room.

“I,” Emma began, but Regina laid her index finger over Emma’s lips and shut her up.

“You,” she began, sounding livid, “you don’t get to talk right now. I am angry. Scratch that, I am furious! I can’t believe you went behind my back, again, and I can’t believe that you kept this from me for so long! I thought we were friends now! I trusted you!”

Against her will, Emma began to tear up. She was disgusted at herself but she couldn’t help it. Her throat closed and she swallowed hard.

Regina looked at her and made a strangled, frustrated noise in her throat. “Damn it, don’t look at me like that! Why is it so hard to be angry with you? After what you did with Robin, I couldn’t image ever wanting to see you again and then you just kept showing up everywhere! And why exactly does it have to be your magic, out of all the magical beings in the world, that I have this kind of connection with?”

“I’m sorry,” Emma whispered but Regina silenced her with a look.

“I’m not done yet! You’ve lied to me by omission for months, and that’s completely unacceptable considering you said you were trying to earn back my trust.” Regina took a deep breath and looked down at the floor for a moment. “That being said,” she continued at a considerably lower volume, “I have no intention of letting you sabotage my happiness all over again.”

Emma couldn’t help the hopeful expression that crossed her face when Regina looked up and regarded her tenderly. Could she mean…?

“You are by far the most pig-headed woman with the most ridiculous penchant for acting first and thinking later I have ever met,” Regina said fondly.

“Regina,” Emma whispered, and in her name tried to convey everything that she’d been feeling since she left the mansion. _I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I want to make you happy._

_I think I’m falling in love with you_.

“We are going to take this slowly. You are going to have to make this up to me.”

Emma nodded. “Absolutely. We’ll go as slow as you need. I won’t even kiss-”

Regina lunged forward, wrapping one hand around Emma’s neck, and pulled her down. It was a sloppy kiss because Emma had literally been mid-sentence when Regina planted her lips on her, but she felt it all the way down to her toes. She quickly wrapped her hands in Regina’s hair and began to slow them down, sliding their lips together in a more controlled, gentle way.

Regina gasped and Emma slid her tongue into her mouth. The sound Regina made in the back of her throat reverberated down between Emma’s legs and she groaned against her. Regina pressed into her more firmly, her hands sliding up and down Emma’s arms and then onto her shoulders, pulling her closer, until they fronts of their bodies were flush against one another.

“This isn’t slow,” Emma gasped, her eyes closed and her head thrown back as Regina nipped and sucked on her neck.

“You’re still wearing your clothes, aren’t you?” Regina quipped, before leaning in to kiss her again and popping the top button of Emma’s shirt open. They kissed and kissed until Emma’s lips felt bruised and Regina had managed to slide her shirt onto the floor. Emma had found the zip on Regina’s dress and was slowly dragging it down while Regina scratched her short nails against Emma’s bare stomach.

“God,” Emma sighed, and Regina smiled up at her, hair mussed, eyes wild, like an image from one of Emma’s dreams. Except this time, Regina really was reaching up to cup her breasts, and Emma finally did get to peel Regina’s incredibly sexy suit dress off her body.

As it hit the floor, Regina shivered as the cold air hit her body. Emma took her hand and helped her to step out of her heels and the dress.

“Wow,” she whispered, faced with Regina’s curves wrapped in sexy black and cream lace, and Emma wondered why on earth she had waited this long.

Regina blushed all the way down to her chest, and Emma stumbled as she dragged Regina back towards her bedroom because she was so busy staring at her breasts.

They made it to the door of the bedroom before they were kissing again, this time with Regina pressed against the wood and Emma pushing into her. Both their hands were linked and pinned up beside Regina’s head, and the way Regina’s skin felt pressed against Emma’s naked stomach made her head race.

She felt like she was melting, like she couldn’t get close enough. Regina tore her hands free and began to unbuckle Emma’s belt. The feeling of the button on her jeans popping open managed to cut through the haze of lust in Emma’s brain. She pulled back ever so slightly and cupped Regina’s face in both her hands.

“Are you sure about this? I need you to be sure.”

The intense, wild look in Regina’s eyes faded into something softer. “Emma,” she said gently, stroking her cheek with her warm hand, “I want you.”

Emma leaned in and they kissed again, much gentler and slower this time with only a hint of tongue. Each flick of Regina’s tongue against her own made Emma clench between her thighs, and she could feel her legs trembling.

She gently pulled Regina with her towards the bed, stumbling a littler when she tried to undo her bra and walk at the same time, but Regina was too busy unclasping Emma’s own to notice.

Soon they were almost naked, with Emma on top of Regina and the only fabric separating them as they pressed against each other was the lace of Regina’s panties and the cotton of Emma’s shorts. Emma could hardly think; Regina’s lips were wrapped around her nipple and one of her legs was hooked around her hip, pulling her closer. She pulled Regina’s head up and kissed her roughly, a hot and wet clash of their mouths. They rocked together, feeling the heat between them.

Regina suddenly rolled them over, and ran one finger lightly over between Emma’s legs through the material of her underwear.

Emma’s hips rolled into her hand, and she made a noise which she could never remember making before, somewhere between a strangled groan and a cry. Regina froze for a moment, and Emma struggled to open her eyes. She wanted to say ‘are you ok?’ but all that came out was a little huff of air. Regina smiled down at her, open and so beautiful, and then she bent down and kissed a line from Emma’s naval to the line of her panties.

Before Emma really knew what was happening, Regina had her completely naked and had pulled her to the bottom of her bed, where she knelt before her.

Emma’s eyes suddenly went wide. She had only had this done to her a couple of times in her life; Neal hadn’t particularly enjoyed it and after him it always seemed too intimate, made her feel too out of control. She wasn’t sure if she was ready for this yet with Regina.

But then she felt kisses on the inside of her left thigh, just where her leg met her body and her brain officially decided to give up. All she could focus on were the short nails digging gently into her hip, the tongue softly tracing the outline of her labia, and then, without warning, the lips around her clit.

And yeah, Tinkerbell had said that Regina had had female lovers, but holy fuck, she must have a master’s degree in cunnilingus because it had never, ever felt like that.

Regina teased her, licked her up and down, pushed into her and then sucked on her clit, used her fingers and then moved them away, until all Emma could do was cling onto her dark hair for dear life and focus on breathing.

She tried to keep her eyes open to look down at the unbearably sexy image of Regina’s head buried in her pussy, but the sensations were too much and then Regina was licking hard and fast little circles around her clit and Emma’s legs trembled with tension and her back arched and suddenly she was falling into an orgasm which made her whole body tense like it would snap. Emma’s mouth fell open but she couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t breathe, all she could do was feel her whole body shiver as her clit throbbed and Regina continued to lap at her wetness.

“S-stop,” she managed, her voice sounding like she’d been screaming along to metal music all night. She collapsed into the bed, head spinning, and kept her eyes closed until Regina, who had reclined in front of her, gently pushed Emma’s hair out of her face.

“I enjoyed that,” Regina said, and she looked so pleased with herself that Emma had to resist rolling her eyes.

“Come here,” she said instead, and pulled her into a sloppy kiss. Regina’s normally perfectly made-up face was wet and sticky, and Emma could taste herself on Regina’s swollen lips.

Soon, Regina was on top of Emma again, and she was moaning and squirming while Emma reached up and cupped her breasts, tugging gently on her hard nipples. While Emma usually had a hard time forming words during sex, she discovered that Regina liked to talk.

She groaned out Emma’s name when she was finally flipped on to her back, she would pant “please please _please!_ ” into Emma’s ear when Emma teased her by scratching along the outline of the patch of black lace between her thighs, and when she finally tugged Regina’s panties out of the way and entered her gently with one finger, she called out ‘yes!’ so loudly that Emma was really, really glad that Henry was not in the apartment that night.

It took Emma a few moments to get the right rhythm; Regina liked it a lot shallower than she did herself, but Regina was relatively patient and not above giving instructions. “Like that,” she’d hiss into Emma’s ear. “Not so deep. Faster. God _yes!_ ”

And despite having come already, fucking Regina was making her hornier than she could ever remember being.

After they’d found a pace which worked for Regina, Emma experimented with pressing her thumb gently against Regina’s clit while she worked her finger inside her. It took a bit of manoeuvring, but then she twisted her wrist and managed to hit Regina’s clit and curl her finger inside her, and suddenly Regina’s eyes widened and her hands grabbed hard at Emma’s shoulders, and then she could feel, actually feel, Regina’s walls clenching around her fingers as she came beneath her.

It was incredible. Emma couldn’t stop staring at her face as she came undone, eyes screwed shut with pleasure and little moans falling out of her mouth as she rocked in a gently slowing motion into Emma’s hand.

It was the sexiest thing Emma had ever seen. Without waiting for Regina to recover, she grabbed her right hand and pressed it against her clit. Regina’s eyes snapped open but Emma was beyond begging; she just held onto Regina’s delicate wrist and ground against her fingers.

She couldn’t remember ever making noises like these before, like low growls in the back of her throat.

Regina started fluttering the tips of her fingers against her and Emma loosened the death grip on her wrist. It took barely thirty seconds before Emma was clenching again, coming with a whine that caught in her throat.

Sweaty and deeply satisfied, she lay down next to Regina, and hesitated before gently placing an arm over her bare stomach. Regina turned to look at her, a small, content smile on her face.

“I really like your definition of taking it slow,” Emma teased gently.

To her delight, Regina actually laughed. This was the softest she had ever seen her; naked and unguarded, hair messy and mascara smudged under her eyes, and she was breath-taking.

They lay in lazy, contented silence, running their fingers slowly across each other’s skin.

“I never thought that I would be able to be so lucky again,” Regina whispered. “It’s practically unheard of, finding this three times in one lifetime. And it seems so strange to think that I have this chance, again, so soon, after all those years of wanting this more than anything.”

Emma looked at her earnestly. “I know I’ve not gone about this the best way,” she said, “but I promise you that I will do everything within my power to make you happy.”

Regina looked at her, eyes glinting suspiciously wetly in the semi-darkness of the room. “Doesn’t this frighten you? I know you have your problems with the idea of destiny, and you’re just accepting what pixie dust has proclaimed is right for us.”

“It did frighten me.” Emma decided to be honest. “And I tried to ignore it, but it was like you were always there in the back of my mind, even when I was trying so hard not to think about you. And then that day in the field with Zelena’s stuff and our magic, it was like-” Emma trailed off, not knowing how to put into words how incredibly alive Regina had made her feel that day.

“Me too,” Regina said softly. “I was unhappy about Robin and the loss of what we could have had, but what I felt with you when our magic connected-” She paused. “I’ve never felt that with anyone before. Afterwards I didn’t know how to feel about you. But you made me open up to you, and I think that I knew where this was going even before you said something tonight.”

Emma’s heart was thudding so loudly she was surprised Regina couldn’t feel it. Her chest felt so full of happiness that she thought she would drown in it. She wanted to say so much but felt too shy; she had never been one for big proclamations of emotion and even now when she knew how Regina felt about her, it was still hard to put all of her feelings into words.

Instead, she lent over and placed the softest of kisses against Regina’s lips, and then another one on her forehead and on her cheek, and then wrapped Regina up tightly in her arms, Emma’s lips against the top of Regina’s head.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy or perfect, or anything like that,” Emma finally whispered against her dark hair, “but I think that if we both give it our best shot, we could be something really special.”

Regina twisted her head so she could meet Emma’s eyes and gave her a long, hard look. “I think so too,” she said after a moment.

Emma suddenly groaned. “Oh my god, you realise everyone is now going to think that the only reason I brought Marian back was so that I could have you to myself, right?”

Regina gave an evil little chuckle. “I’m sure this will cause quite the stir.” She hesitated. “You parents might not be very understanding, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, Mary-Margaret already knows, she’s been nagging me for weeks to be honest with you.”

“Snow knows?” Regina sounded both appalled and amused.

Emma cringed; reminding Regina about how she had told a bunch of other people about their destiny before she’d told her was probably not the way to prolong their post-coital bliss.

“I wonder what Henry’s going to say,” Regina said, chewing at her bottom lip worriedly.

“I imagine he’ll react like every thirteen year old when they find out that their parents are having sex,” Emma said, smirking. “He’ll be totally grossed out and mortified.” She rested her hand on Regina’s where it lay between them on the pillow. “Don’t worry. He’ll be happy for us when he sees how happy we are. You are happy, right?”

Despite the fantastic sex they had just had, Emma was still a little worried that she’d pressured Regina into this. _You’re my soul mate, now get naked_. Was there some sort of proof that she should give her? Maybe call up Tinkerbell to testify on her behalf?

“I never thought I’d say this to you of all people,” Regina said lightly, “but you think too much. Of course I’m happy. If I wasn’t, you’d know.”

Well, that was true at least; Regina wasn’t exactly subtle about her emotions.

“Now, it’s eleven fifteen,” Regina said, voice suddenly stern, “and some of us have a town to run in the morning. Are you going to turn the light off or are you expecting me to sleep with that thing glaring in face?”

Emma rolled her eyes and moved to turn off her bedside lamp, but Regina caught both her wrists in a quick movement.

“I thought you wanted me to-” Emma began, and then Regina quirked an eyebrow. “Oh!”

Closing her eyes and concentrating hard, Emma reached out towards the lamp behind her and visualised dimming the light.

“Very good,” Regina purred into her ear. Her breath tickled Emma’s cheek. She swallowed hard, and then rolled on top of Regina. There was no way she was going to let her go to sleep right now, not when the feeling of Emma’s magic so close to her had obviously gotten her all worked up again.

And besides, she owed Regina an orgasm and if there was one thing Emma couldn’t stand, it was not repaying her debts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
